Re: CryptoAnarchy: What's wrong with this picture?

[The Unix Cypherpunk <x@x.x>]

>>>>> "Rich" == Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu> writes:

> On Fri, 3 May 1996, Michael Loomis wrote:
>> circumvent consumption taxation.  Consumption taxation would, of course,
>> include a tax on the amount of information coming into your computer.  I
>> don't think that the government will have any problem determining the
>> quantity of the information & since it will be encrypted anyway, I don't
>> see the privacy worries.

What a wonderful idea!  Everybody would Win with this.

Rich> Traffic analysis (though remailers would help).

What do you have to hide?

Rich> And what about mailbombing? If you're mailbombed, does your tax bill
Rich> skyrocket?

Of course.  The Government is much wiser at spending your money than
you are.  Since most mailbombing can be source blocked, the funds
raised from a mailbombing can be used on a Federal Training program
for computer administrators because you obviously cannot take care of
yourself.

Sites with mailing lists are not exempt, neither are Usenet sites.
The user fees can be raised to pay the taxes.  Mailing lists shouldn't
be free anyway.  The Usenet Oracle will be taxed too.  It's too
dangerous for a site to be giving out free advice without some kind of
Government Regulation.

Rich> I think information has to be free (of tax, anyway), because there is no
Rich> way to prove the utlility of information.

It doesn't matter.  It's a conspiracy by Netscape and Microsoft.  Since
taxation will be based on volume of information it follows logically
that browsing the web with Lynx or images turned off is income tax
evasion.  (Using gzip for FTP is also tax evasion).  It's your duty as
a law-abiding taxpaying citizen-unit to Pay Your Fair Share, and that
means browsing the Web with Netscape with all the extensions turned
on.

Be patriotic!  Put lots of 100k GIFs on your Home Page to Reduce The
Deficit!  Browse the WWW with Netscape for America!  Don't do it for
yourself, Do It For Your Children;  their future is at stake.

Microsoft is feeling threatened on its own turf by people FTPing free
Unix instead of paying big bucks for broken software.  What's good for
Microsoft is Good For America.  Let's keep American Jobs At Home.  We
can't have some upstart foreigner in Finland putting an honest
American company to shame.  FTP file transfers of Linux must be taxed.

Just to be fair, this tax ought to apply to everyone in the world.
Why should taxpaying American citizens have to pay the US government
to visit Yahoo when people in Europe get to see it for free?  Level
the playing field.

- The Unix Cypherpunk